The Blue Baron
by Got Well Soon
Summary: In the final days of the Great War, ace pilot Maxine "Maxwell" Caulfield is given a dangerous new mission, one which will bring her face to face with the deadly Blue Baron, Conrad von Preiss. But all is not quite as it seems…
1. Ace

"Lieutenant Caulfield. Come in."

Max straightened her uniform and stepped into the office, stood at rigid attention before the old man's desk, trying to look as tall as possible. "Sir," she said, a practiced hoarseness in her voice.

"Sit down, Maxwell."

"Yes sir." She sat, erect in the chair, looking at him expectantly.

"You know we haven't seen von Preiss in the air for a while now."

"Yes sir."

"Well, now we know why. Report came in this morning that he's been seen operating at the south end of the front, near Switzerland. He's leading a small squadron, really creating a great deal of havoc. We don't honestly know if this is the prelude to something bigger or just a distraction."

"That's tough country. The mountains, the wind…"

"It is, and he's using that to his advantage. He appears out of the mountains, disappears back into them. We don't know where he's based. We don't know his routes. We don't have adequate air defenses. He's shooting down our planes, strafing our men, bombing our supplies. I need this to stop, lieutenant." The old man leaned forward in his chair. "You now have one mission and one mission only. You are to intercept and bring down the blue baron."

Max blinked. Conrad von Preiss had shot down more of her fellow pilots than entire wings of elite German aircraft. The last time she'd seen his signature blue plane, she'd barely made it back to base alive, limping home with a tattered wing and a jammed rudder. "…Sir. I'm not sure…"

"You think I should send someone else? If we have a better pilot in the service I'd like to know it."

Max swallowed. "No, sir."

"Alright." He handed her a sheaf of papers. "Fly down alone, nobody's to know where you're going. Do your best to blend in with the air detachment down there and hopefully you can take the baron by surprise. Dismissed."

Max stood, saluted, turned on her heel, and strode out.

She hadn't planned on this when she'd joined up, cutting her hair, strapping her chest, deepening her voice. She'd wanted to fly and they'd put her in a plane. Had they really been fooled, or had the British Army, desperate for capable pilots, joined her in the convenient fiction of Maxwell Caulfield? It didn't matter now. Her success had sealed her fate. She was going to confront the baron directly in challenging, unfamiliar terrain.

She was going to die over the mountains of eastern France.

* * *

Max was flying blind. She could barely even see her two wingmen in the dense cloud that surrounded her biplane, cold and damp biting at the exposed parts of her face between her goggles and her helmet. She checked her watch. Two minutes. She angled downwards, descending gently until, all at once, she was in open air, with a clear view of the land below.

The mountains were not particularly high, nothing like the fearsome Alps farther south, but they were steep, an endless roll of long, forested ridges and narrow valleys with scattered pastures and farms. It was arduous going on land, and a plane could easily dip behind a hill and disappear from sight. Flying below the peaks was dangerous; a miscalculation, a sudden gust of wind, and you could run out of open air very fast.

Von Preiss's pattern so far had been to embrace the danger, sneaking through the hills to emerge without warning above the heads of Allied troops, dispense all of his ordinance, and disappear via a different route. Allied air patrols had kept to middle altitudes, with good visibility but also, highly visible themselves. When they'd encountered the baron, he'd always seemed to see them first, climbing to meet them and either driving them off or shooting them down.

Max had taken to higher altitudes, and followed the weather, grateful for a spell of overcast days. She concealed herself in the clouds, dropping out periodically to scan the ground, then climbing back into hiding. If she could avoid being seen by the baron until she was right on top of him, he'd have no way to run or hide and he'd be at a massive tactical disadvantage. All she had to do was find him.

Looking down, she quickly scanned the horizon, then the valleys all around her, counting down as she did so. She would stay visible for no more than ten seconds. Nothing. She glanced back at her wingmen, also looking. No signals from them. She pulled back on the stick, rose easily into the cloud, checked her watch.

It had gone on like this for days, a tiresome monotony of steady engine drone in gray fog. The baron had attacked to the north. To the south, directly along the Swiss border. He was everywhere and nowhere. Max checked her watch. Two minutes. Descend again, look around.

There! Low against the hills, coming through a pass to the northeast. A wing of German biplanes, the leader painted signature blue. Max felt a tingle of adrenaline as her heart began thumping hard in her chest. She had worked for this, had wanted it, and was absolutely terrified of what would happen next. But she had no choice; if not her, then who? She signaled her wingmen by wobbling her plane slightly, quickly changed her heading, and rose again into the cloud. She checked her watch.

She estimated three minutes flying time before she was directly above the baron. They had even numbers, and her wingmen knew what to do. Distract the baron's own wing, leave the blue plane to her. Their own upgraded S.E.5's were faster than the German Fokkers, and her wing was ordered to retreat immediately if either Max or the baron went down. The other German planes were targets were of no importance, at least today.

She stared at her watch, counted down. Time. She descended, looking again for her target. There, below, still cruising, hugging the land. She pitched into a steep dive, and her wingmen followed, coming down high and fast to the rear flank of the Germans. Max smiled to herself. This might even work, if she was lucky. She tended to be lucky.

And then they saw her. Instantly the baron's wingmen left formation, breaking left and right, as all three planes throttled up and began to climb. The move was designed to draw Max's wing apart, reducing their tactical advantage, and it worked. Max's wingmen spread out, each picking and aiming for their own target. Max stayed focussed on her quarry.

She closed fast, speeding downward, and just as she closed to firing range and reached for the trigger, the baron banked with sudden ferocity and dove away, toward a looming mountaintop. He gave her no choice but to follow, flying directly at solid ground, suddenly regretting her high airspeed. She grimaced, pulled the throttle back sharply. It would be a dogfight.

As they began to dance, the baron's tactic become clear; he would use the mountain, diving and skimming past peaks and boulders, missing by what seemed like inches, before bounding upward again, rolling to make an attack on his pursuer. A less confident pilot would not dare follow, and would soon find himself in the blue plane's sights.

Max was not a less confident pilot. Against her instincts, she followed the baron in his insanity, finessing flight stick and throttle, engine alternately docile and roaring, swinging from near stall to gut-twisting dive and back again. Their wingmen disappeared in the distance, Max's own men successfully drawing off the Germans. It seemed protecting the baron was not a priority; they must have believed him invincible against a single adversary. As, so far, he had always been.

Max hoped to beat the odds. She stuck to the Baron like glue, trusting that there was nothing his latest-model Fokker could do which her plane could not. As far as anybody knew it was still true, but the equation had changed more than once over the course of the war. Max remembered the first reversal bitterly, overconfident British and French pilots cut down by new German Eindecker monoplanes. Before long they had sensibly returned to biplanes, but they were good ones, and gave the Allies quite a fight.

As her pursuit continued, the baron grew ever wilder, taking risks. Leveling off, he suddenly banked, seeming to hurl himself directly into the mountain. Max sensed a feint and slowed, keeping an even course, and she was right. The baron reversed his bank, pulling hard away from the mountain, hoping to throw his pursuer off balance. Instead, he crossed the sights of her gun. Max squeezed the trigger, the forward Vickers hammering away in front of her, and she smirked as she saw a small spray of debris from her target, followed immediately by the scent of raw petrol.

Now it was only a matter of time. The legendary blue baron, scourge of the Allied air forces, hadn't expected to meet a British ace in an anonymous plane out here on the edge of the war, and now, his fuel pouring away, he would go down on the French side of the front. Max eased off the throttle, still following, expecting the baron to break eastward, toward the border.

Instead, he pulled up hard, rising into a vertical stall at maximum throttle, then tipping over and backward, falling, upside-down. A suicide move that would kill his engine and set his nose, suddenly, pointing toward Max.

Too late, she swore, yanked hard on the stick, her plane lurching as the baron's twin machine guns rattled, perforating Max's wings, and then, with a bang, her engine locked, her propeller slamming to a halt. The engine's roar, ever-present in years of flying, fell silent, and Max heard something she'd never heard before. The sound of the wind, whistling over the fuselage.

There was a rumor among her fellow pilots that some German aircraft had begun to be fitted with ejector seats and parachutes. As she lost speed and approached a stall which would drop her from the sky like a stone, Max sorely wished the Brits were a little further along with this new technology. She fought the controls, forcing the nose down, trying to maintain enough speed to keep the plane aloft. As she did so, she looked around, desperate for flat ground where she could attempt a landing.

Off to one side, the baron's plane tumbled, spinning wildly, his engine also dead. He was dropping fast, essentially in free fall, but as Max watched the plane straightened out and headed for a wide stream bed, not far away.

It looked like the only place within reach which wasn't covered in trees. Max cursed again. She was going down in the middle of nowhere and, if she survived the landing, the blue baron would be waiting for her. She turned her plane, reluctantly gliding after him. She had greater altitude; she realized she could probably strafe him on the way down and kill him in the cockpit.

But that wasn't how she operated. She'd succeeded at her mission, they were still in France, far from the front. One way or another, he was not going to fly for the Germans again. That ought to be enough.

She watched as the blue plane, silent, glided into the stream bed, bouncing on a stretch of flat rock, rocking wildly. As it slowed, the lower right wing clipped a stray tree limb, and the plane spun right, slamming to a halt against the trees. Almost immediately, a figure lithely hopped down from the cockpit and disappeared into the forest.

Unfortunately for Max, the tail of the baron's plane was now in her way, projecting into the limited open space. She'd have to come down earlier, where there was less room, and hope could stop before smashing into his plane. Which was, by now, surrounded by spilled fuel.

She concentrated, imagining her precise path through the space in front of her. As soon as she cleared the last tall tree, she dropped hard, risked planting the nose, bounced her landing gear against the ground. She forced the plane down, braking hard.

It wasn't enough. She flinched as the two planes collided, delicate wood and fabric structures shredding into a tangled mess around her. Her landing gear collapsed, pitching her propeller and heavy engine down onto the rocky surface below, and Max saw the the thing she least wanted to see. Something must have sparked on the stone, because all at once she was surrounded by flames.

It was not, in fact, Max's first time in the cockpit of a burning aircraft. Highly flammable under normal circumstances, one entire side of her plane was now entwined with the baron's own fuel-soaked wreck. She didn't have much time, but she knew her flight suit — dense, weatherproof fabric lined with fur — would protect her. Briefly. She grabbed her satchel of emergency supplies and hurled them away, clear of the flames. Then she awkwardly levered herself up and out, falling the distance to the ground and landing painfully on her back, in a pool of burning petrol.

She scrambled up, the arms, legs, and gloves of her suit now on fire, and dashed a short distance away before dropping again, rolling, and stripping off the burning garments and fuel-soaked helmet. Fortunately the shirt and trousers she had on underneath had not ignited. She crawled away from the conflagration, panting. "Ah," she gasped, rolling from her knees onto her back. "Ah, bugger."

A shadow fell across her. Her eyes flicked up to the barrel of an automatic pistol, aimed steadily at her head. And behind it, Conrad von Preiss, the blue baron himself.


	2. Captive

Max regarded the figure looming over her. She had expected to meet a giant of a man, with a physique to match his towering reputation. And he was taller than Max, but was otherwise rather delicate. A slim figure, pale skin, fine features, and deep blue eyes which, Max saw, had been the inspiration for the color of his planes. He'd removed his helmet, revealing a shock of short, blonde hair. Incongruously, he wore a British Sidcot flight suit very similar to her own. Max knew that the Germans often took them from captured British pilots, but it was still disconcerting. He had also picked up her satchel.

She returned her attention to the pistol, aimed steadily at her face. She drew a ragged breath, fighting panic. She'd been shot at plenty of times before, but had never confronted the prospect of being executed at point-blank range.

Keeping his weapon trained on her, the baron stooped, quickly searching through her bag and pulling out her trusty Webley revolver, which he casually tossed away into the woods. Then he stood, dropping the bag next to her. "Aufstehen!" he barked, his voice a high-pitched, fierce rasp, not the baritone of Max's imagination. She had no idea what the word meant so she slowly raised her hands to her head, doing her best to look like surrendering. The man grunted with exasperation, shouted "Stand up!" in heavily-accented English.

Her hands still on her head, Max rose, felt the intense heat of the burning aircraft on her back. The baron reached forward, roughly frisked her with one hand. Finding nothing, he waved the gun in her face. "Name? Who are you?"

"Maxwell Caulfield," she said, using her accustomed approximation of a male voice, artificially hoarse.

At this, he exhaled noisily, grimacing. "Of course they would send you. I should not have allowed my wingmen to leave." He waved the gun at the woods, indicating a direction. "March!"

Max looked into the woods skeptically. "Where are we going?"

"Away from here. I have seen a farm from the air. Shelter. There will be a storm, tonight. March!"

If Max stayed near the crash site, she would eventually be found and rescued. No doubt this was what the baron hoped to prevent. It seemed she had no choice. She began to walk, while the baron followed, pistol in hand. Soon they were surrounded by dense trees, and were ascending a gentle slope.

She briefly regretted not trying to gun him down as he crash-landed. Too late now, she was stuck, a hostage, alone in the woods with the man. Worse, if they were together long he would surely discover her true gender, and then, depending on what kind of man he was, she might have a whole new kind of problem. She wished she still had her sidearm.

Max had always kept it with her, and she had needed it. Over the years, plenty of the men she served with had found her out, and most had treated her with respect and given her the privacy she needed. A few had attempted romance, and were easily rebuffed. But one, another officer, had come into her tent one night smelling of rum and threatened to expose her to the brass. Maybe he wouldn't, if she was a friend of his. A very good friend. She'd brought her revolver to his head, and wondered aloud why, having killed so many strapping young German boys already, she should stop at adding a single Englishman to the tally. He had fled, and never spoke to her again. If he had made good on his threat, which she doubted, nothing had come of it.

Now, her weapon left behind in the woods, she was at the baron's mercy. Best to ingratiate herself to the man. She called backward as she walked. "That was quite a maneuver at the end, Conrad. I was sure you'd try for the front."

For a moment there was silence, just the sound of the baron crunching through the underbrush, and Max feared he would not speak to her. She was relieved when he eventually answered, his accented English clear enough. "I would not have escaped the mountains. You know this."

Max nodded. "Still, you could have made it part way, had a better chance of rescue."

"Behind the front? Never. And you might have shot at me again. From behind, I would have been killed. I had to disable you."

"No, I wasn't going to shoot again. My orders were to bring you down, there was no reason to kill you. If I'd wanted to I could have done it while you landed, anyway."

"Yes, it was possible. I was concerned."

 _Concerned?_ If the situation was reversed Max would have been a great deal more than concerned. As she was presently, with a pistol at her back. "How do you plan to deal with the owners of this farmhouse we're going to?" she asked.

"There is no one there. It is… verlassen. No one lives there."

 _Oh_ , Max thought bitterly, _that's just wonderful news_. "You could tell that from the air?"

"A farm with no wagon and no animals is verlassen. Perhaps you do not pay attention."

Max frowned. "It seems I do not."

They were heading steadily uphill, approaching a ridge, and as they ascended Max felt the wind grow stronger, and colder. She looked up at the clouds, which were darker and thicker than they had been when she'd flown through them. The baron was right; there was a storm coming. She shivered as the breeze cut through her thin clothes, wishing she still had her fur-lined flight suit. They continued in silence for a while, as Max wondered what the baron had planned for her. Eventually she decided to voice the question directly, glancing backward at him. "Why are you holding me captive? What are you going to do with me?"

"Perhaps I will shoot you when I am tired of your questions."

Max swallowed. That sounded like a bluff. Probably. "Maybe you'd better do it then, if that's your plan. I'm cold, and tired of this hike."

Behind her, the baron sighed. "If I let you go, you will go to your men, and will lead them to capture me. I will not be taken. If I keep you, you are a hostage in case I am found. They will be looking."

It was true. They would send scout aircraft looking for both of them, and would find them sooner or later. Then a whole team would be sent. Conrad would be interrogated and imprisoned, while Max, if she were still alive, would be celebrated as a hero, then returned to duty in a new plane.

The idea made her queasy. The crash-landing had been terrifying. She'd been at war for years, pretending to be a man so she could keep flying missions against an enemy she had never hated. She loved to fly, but was sick of the rest of it. And would her military masters be able to turn the tide of the war with what they learned from von Preiss? Probably not. The Allies, reinforced by fresh American troops, had already pushed the Germans back to the Hindenburg line. Many thought the war was nearly won. And now, the blue baron was out of the sky. The important task was done.

Max wouldn't make a very useful hostage though. An infantry commander would likely sacrifice her to get to Conrad. "I don't think it's a good plan, Conrad. Holding me hostage won't be enough to stop them. Instead," she said, stopping and turning to face him, "I propose a truce."

He stopped, looking at her skeptically.

Max talked fast. She wanted out from under the barrel of that gun. "You let me go, and if we're found, I do my best to make sure you get away. Until then, we work together. There's enough food in my bag for about two days. It'll be hard enough just surviving out here, and I'm too far away and too lost to find my way back. I'm stuck here just as much as you are."

The baron glanced around, clearly considering.

Before he could answer, Max continued. "You can't keep that gun on me all the time, and I _will_ run away if I get the chance. If you shoot me, you're nothing but a target, alone in the woods."

The baron stared at her. "How do I know that you are honorable?"

"Because I didn't shoot you while you were landing? I had time to put, what, a hundred rounds into your plane? That has to be worth something."

Slowly, he nodded. "It is. I will agree on one condition."

"Which is?" Max asked, hesitantly.

A sardonic smile formed on the baron's lips. "Tell me your real name, Fräulein Caulfield," he said, softly.

Max's eyes widened in surprise. How had he figured her out so quickly? Something in her gait, maybe; he'd been watching her steadily as she walked. "I…" she began to object, in her hoarse man-voice, but then she stopped. What was the point? With an effort, she let go of the clench in her throat, allowed her voice to soften to its natural register. "…Maxine. My name is Maxine Caulfield. But people just… call me Max."

The baron nodded solemnly. He walked toward her, ejecting the magazine from his gun as he approached. Looking down at her with hard, ice-blue eyes, he spoke, his words sounding altogether different. A woman's voice. "Then we have a truce." Max wondered if he were mocking her, but the feminine tone continued. "And it seems we have something in common, Fräulein. My name is Chloé." With this, he — she — handed Max the pistol's magazine. "Now if we must shoot somebody, we cooperate."

Max took the ammunition and just stood there, wide-eyed and stupefied. It seemed impossible, but hearing Conrad's — Chloé's — voice left little room for doubt. She felt an immediate sense of kinship with this other woman in a man's guise. Her mind raced, re-writing all her conceptions of the blue baron from a bloodthirsty villain of the skies into someone a bit more like herself. She supposed Chloé could still be a bloodthirsty villain but… it didn't seem to fit. She found herself smiling, staring up at the erstwhile baron, lost for words.

Chloé smiled back. "I now cooperate with the enemy. But… Maxwell was my enemy. Maxine is someone new, yes? Let us continue."

Max nodded, and they turned, walking together through the woods. Max had a thousand questions, but didn't know where to start. Or really where she stood with this unexpected woman. "Chloé," she asked, "isn't that a French name?"

Chloé nodded. "My grandmother was French. I am told."

"Oh." Max didn't want to push too hard.

"Let us discuss our craft," Chloé said. "My favorite was the Fokker triplane, the D.R.1. Did you ever fly the British one, the Sopwith?"

"Yes, briefly. Solid, but just the one gun, and the controls were heavy."

"It looked like an excellent plane. We were quite intrigued, when it appeared."

"If the triplane was your favorite, why were you in a biplane, today?"

Chloé rolled her eyes. "Because I did not want to die. The triplane is… veraltet. Too old. The D.7 is more capable. I helped with the design."

"Oh," Max said, impressed. She just flew the things. "But it's still not your favorite?"

Chloé shrugged. "It is a machine of war. Effective. The triplane was graceful. It danced in the sky, you know? What about that… what is it called? That you had?"

"The 'Scout Experimental 5'. It's the best we have, better than the Camel. There just aren't enough of them."

"Yes, that ridiculous gun, on the wing. It can fire upwards? It is very… annoying."

Max chuckled. "It's handy. But you have to carry the ammunition in the cockpit and reload by hand. It's not easy."

"I had wondered."

They continued to talk planes as they walked, the conversation growing more fluid as they both relaxed into each other's company. They crested the ridge just before dusk, and, squinting, could just make out the farm they'd sought on the valley floor. It was still miles away, a small house and barn barely visible in a clear area, surrounded by sparse woods. "Ach," Chloé said, "it seemed closer from the air."

As they descended the ridge into the valley, again surrounded by trees, they shared a package of hard, dry biscuits from Max's satchel. Chloé wrinkled her nose. "Are all your rations so bad? I hope that I will not be eating these for long."

"I have a bit of cheese and some tea. And sugar."

"In your iron ration?! Luxury! Do you have coffee?"

"Just tea."

"I will enjoy the cheese."

"I didn't say I was going to give you any."

"I… thought we would cooperate."

"That doesn't mean I have to give up the best parts of my meagre supplies. It's not my fault you didn't bring any of your own."

"It is precisely your fault. Your bullet went through my fuel tank, then exploded my bag, destroyed the packages. All of my food was full of fuel."

Chloé's emergency rations would have been in the cockpit, which meant that a few inches over and Max would have killed her in her plane. Max would have flown home intact, having downed the blue baron, an unbelievable victory. She wouldn't be stuck here in the mountains. To her surprise, Max found she preferred the mountains. She imagined reading the report, from whomever they sent to retrieve the baron's body, proclaiming Chloé's secret. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Chloé spoke again, breaking this dismal chain of thought. "I have not had a bite of cheese in two years. Someone got a wheel of emmental, I do not know how, and traded slices of it for tobacco."

"Oh," Max said, "they always give us a little cheese. I guess you can have it."

"Thank you."

Soon it began to rain, cold, fat Autumn droplets. Max hugged her shoulders, but was soon soaked and shivering. She fell behind Chloé, ducking her head to keep the rain out of her eyes, blindly following the backs of Chloé's boots.

They had stopped talking, and walked in silence and gathering darkness for what seemed like ages. The rain intensified, but it didn't matter, every thread of Max's clothing was already wet, and she was shivering badly. Chloé, she was sure, was perfectly warm and dry in her purloined Sidcot suit. Max's legs were heavy. She plodded on.

Eventually, they emerged from the trees into weedy, muddy open ground. The going was harder here, mud sucking at their boots, tall weeds impeding their progress. The moonlight was almost entirely shut out by the storm, and Max could no longer make out anything in the dark and driving rain. She was beyond cold, was going numb all over. She stumbled, fell to one knee, squelching into the mud. Her legs simply refused the order to stand. Then she felt Chloé put an arm around her, haul her up. "Come along, Maxine, you did not survive a dogfight with the blue baron just to die of cold. It is not far now."

Shakily, Max got to her feet and trudged on. She was so tired. She fought a powerful urge to just lie down on the ground and sleep. It was not long before they arrived at a structure; dimly, Max thought it must be the farmhouse. She was thrust inside, laid down on a bed. Her eyes were closed, or it was pitch dark, or she was blind, she wasn't sure. Her freezing, soaked clothing was stripped off, then she felt the heavy weight of blankets. She lay motionless, wondering if she would die, and if that would really be so bad, when a sudden flare of warmth bloomed beside her.

Chloé held her close against her bare skin, shivering. "Better now, yes? Together we will be warm."

And Max finally, finally gave in to sleep.


	3. Missing In Action

Max awoke slowly to morning light. She felt well-rested, warm and comfortable, more so than she'd been in a long while. She found herself cuddled up to Chloé, nude, her hand around the other woman's bare waist, her head resting against her shoulder. It was a novel and very pleasant sensation, and, as she returned to consciousness, entirely wrong. Nothing about being wrapped around a naked, strange woman, who was also an enemy soldier, was right, _especially_ enjoying it. She gently pulled away, trying not to make a sound. She didn't want Chloé to catch her in such a humiliating position.

But Chloé was already awake. "Oh," she said. "Good morning, Maxine."

 _Bugger_. "Ah! I'm sorry," Max stammered, bolting straight up, holding a blanket over her chest. "I didn't mean to—" A draught of cold air informed her that most of her body was now plainly visible. "Oh!" she yelped, embarrassed, and flopped back down under the covers, stared upward at a cracked ceiling.

"Do not be sorry. It is nice to be held by a pretty girl." Chloé smiled. "You are like a kitten."

Max cringed, her face hot. "I'm not a kitten!"

Chloé's voice became sympathetic. "Be calm, Maxine. I am… what is the word? Teasing. I have put you like this to make you warm."

Right. Max replayed what she remembered from the previous night. Very likely Chloé, the blue baron, whoever she really was, had saved Max's life by dragging her in here and getting in bed with her. Max found herself inexpressibly relieved that the baron wasn't a man. She lifted her head, looked around the room. There wasn't much to see, a lone window, a pile of sodden clothes, Chloé's flight suit, and an old trunk. Max had nothing dry to wear.

"Do not hurry to get up," Chloé said. "We have no mission to fly today."

Max had never shared a bed with anyone else. She had no idea how to behave. But Chloé did not seem the least bit perturbed. For lack of a better plan, Max relented, lying still, careful not to touch Chloé again.

"I have pretended for years, to be a man," Chloé said, rolling onto her side, facing Max. "It is all men in the Luftstreitkräfte. If you were a man I maybe would have shot you, before. I know I would not have done this."

"Well, then, I'm glad you found me out."

"You are not very convincing. So short! Do you really fool them?"

Max hesitated. She still felt extremely ill at ease but… the bed was nice and cozy, and there was no harm in a little conversation. "Ah… the people I know, other pilots, the mechanics? No, a lot of them know the truth. But they care more about what I do in the air, as long as I keep up appearances. They give me privacy, more than most officers get. I'm not sure it'll last after the war is over."

Chloé nodded. "It was the same for me at first. Once I began to… be successful, I transferred to a new squadron, started with the blue planes. They promoted me to hauptmann, ah… that is captain, I became good at giving orders, being powerful. I think some suspect but do not dare to speak of it."

"Captain? I'm only a first lieutenant!"

Chloé laughed. "Ah! Oberleutnant! Then you must take my orders!"

"I don't think so!"

"Do not worry! I am a good commander. I have no orders for you today. But, ah, I suppose we must see about food and water, while we have the sun. Are you warm?"

"Very."

"Stay. I will get the clothes. We shall see how you look dressed as a French farmer's wife, instead of a master of the skies, eh?"

Chloé slid out of bed, stood facing away from Max, and stretched. Max couldn't believe her shamelessness, and couldn't help but stare. When Chloé turned back to face her, Max quickly looked away.

"Do not pretend," Chloé said impatiently. "You may look."

Embarrassed again, Max looked back to Chloé, now rifling through the old trunk. She pulled out a variety of threadbare clothing. "At least they've left us something, although I do not think we will like them. These are too small for me." She tossed some simple cotton knickers onto the bed for Max, then a rough dress made from warm, thick wool. Chloé donned a pair of loose men's trousers, a plain grey shirt, and a pair of suspenders. She chuckled grimly, adjusting the suspenders. "Conrad has returned! Now he is a farmer, and he looks like a fool." Then she turned and strode from the room, speaking as she left. "You are modest. You may dress in private."

"I—" Max started to protest, but it was true, she was more comfortable wrangling the ill-fitting, borrowed clothes without Chloé watching. She wondered how she looked dressed as a farmer's wife. There was no mirror.

She stepped out of the small bedroom to find herself in a good-sized kitchen, with an iron stove, a simple table, two chairs, and a tin bathtub. A small cupboard held a heavy iron pot and some mismatched dishes. It seemed this was the only other room in the house; the other door clearly led outside. Chloé was busy investigating the stove, and, satisfied, turned to Max. "We are lucky. It should work." She gestured to a well-worn trap door. "Let us check the cellar."

Max lifted the hatch and stepped down the ladder into the cold cellar, followed by Chloé. There had once been a good provision of vegetables, which had all gone to rot. Someone had thoughtfully set a large sack of flour in an earthenware crock, preventing mice, and there was a big sack of salt. From the ceiling hung a small cluster of old, moldy sausages. And, on a high shelf, bottles of a clear liquid. Chloé took one down, pulled the cork, sniffed. "Schnapps," she said, then "Prost!" and took a sip. "Ah! Good. Or… not bad," she concluded, offering the bottle to Max.

"No, thank you."

Chloé shrugged, corked the bottle, but didn't put it away. "For later," she said.

"Sure. Why do you think they left this?"

Chloé shrugged. "We are close to the front. They feared the war, they fled, they could only carry so much. Also, it is tradition with mountain folk to leave some things, in case someone is lost, and comes. Like us! We must thank them, if they can be found."

Next they went outside, where the storm had cleared and a warming sun shone. The farm was bordered on two sides by steep woodland, with open prairie up-valley, whence they had come, and grassy pasture heading down toward the valley's mouth. The stream running through the middle was cool and clear, and a disused track followed it away from the house. Nearby, Max was glad to find an outhouse, and a small barn, which yielded a few tools, a bucket, a stack of firewood. It appeared the farm itself had been neglected for a handful of years, with crops re-seeding themselves wildly and weeds running rampant throughout. Digging through the weeds with their hands, they found good news in the soil: potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnips. A few unruly cabbages that might still be edible. A tangle of peas which had dried on the vine. On one side of the house was an orchard, plums which were well past their season, but also a row of apple trees covered with small, ripe fruit. Max took one, bit into it, found it somewhat sweet, a little sour, but good. She didn't get any fresh fruit back at the base. She nodded to Chloé, who picked one of her own, absentmindedly eating it as she looked around, pondering.

"I think," Chloé said, "that this is a good farm. It is a shame the animals are gone. It will be dull but there is enough for us to live for… months, if we gather wood to burn. Through winter, I think. Longer if we catch some meat."

Max looked around. She supposed they could hunt, but their only weapon was Chloé's sidearm. "How would we do that?"

"There will be rabbits. There are always rabbits. My father taught me to trap them."

"We probably won't have to stay here very long in any case. That track leads somewhere, we could find our way out, if they don't rescue us first."

"Rescue you, you mean. I am not rescued, I am captured. Perhaps you convince them to let me go, perhaps you do not. I prefer not to be found."

Max sighed, indecisive. Her duty was to return to her unit as quickly as possible. She had little desire to do so, at least not immediately. "Right," she said. "Maybe they won't find us."

Chloé finished her apple, tossed away the core, picked another. "This would go well with some cheese," she said, hopefully.

Max grinned and went inside the house, soon returning with her knife and a little three-ounce chunk of something hard and French and smelly, wrapped in wax paper. It wasn't Max's favorite, but Chloé's eyes lit up. They made a breakfast of it, sitting on a pair of old stumps, small slices of cheese and as many apples as they could stomach.

Afterward, Max spent the day collecting potatoes and vegetables, beginning to restock the cellar, while Chloé trekked back and forth to the nearby forest, gathering firewood. The supply in the barn was insufficient for a long stay, and with no clear idea of how long they would be at the house or what the next day's weather would be, it seemed best to collect as much as they could.

As the afternoon light waned and the temperature dropped, they retreated to the kitchen, starting a fire in the stove, cutting up vegetables with Max's small knife. They made a simple dinner of boiled potatoes and vegetables, flavored with a little piece of tinned beef from Max's rations.

It made a thin, uninspiring soup, but at least it was a hot meal. "I would not make a good house wife," Chloé sighed, staring forlornly into her bowl of bland sustenance.

"No," Max laughed, "me either."

After they ate, they pulled the two chairs in front of the open door of the stove. The flame within was the only light they had. Chloé poured a bit of schnapps into two earthenware cups, handed one to Max, then downed her own in a single gulp. "Ah! Prost!" she intoned, then slouched in her chair, absentmindedly checking the pockets of her borrowed clothes. She took out a crumpled packet, shook it, looked inside, then grunted, "Mist!" and tossed it into the fire.

Smiling to herself, Max stood, found her satchel, fumbled inside in the darkness. She returned to the fire and handed Chloé an unopened packet of cigarettes.

"Ah, good!" Chloé exclaimed, eagerly tearing it open. She shook out a cigarette for herself, then offered the packet to Max.

"Keep it. They put them in my rations, I always give them away."

Chloé tucked the packet into her shirt pocket. "Who knows when I will get more, I will guard these." She leaned forward, holding the cigarette to a hot coal until it lit, then sat back, smoking. "It is a disaster," she mused. "I am shot down, my plane is destroyed, I am stranded in France, I am cooperating with the enemy. I have saved the life of a British pilot who I am supposed to kill. And yet, I am content. Are you content, Maxine? You are smiling."

Maxine sipped her schnapps. It had a distinct plum aroma but little flavor, and burned going down. It wasn't bad. "I…" she hesitated. "This feels a bit like a holiday."

"A holiday would have better food," Chloé said. "But I think you are right, it is good to be away from the war."

"I'm not looking forward to going back."

"No," Chloé said, taking a drag from her cigarette, exhaled smoke slowly, watching it. "I did not expect to live this long. When I joined, I thought, I will probably be killed in the first year."

"Then why did you join?"

Chloé sighed. "I did not want the life they wanted for me. And I am not really a noble, it is just a name to… frighten you. Were you frightened?"

"A bit, yes. Everyone knows about the blue baron. Nobody wants to face him."

"And yet, it is not enough. Years spent, nothing gained, and now, the Americans. I think my country should surrender soon. Such waste. Why did you join?"

Max grimaced. "I wanted to fly more than anything. I was a scout, aerial photography, but… they gave me a gun. Soon enough I had to use it. Once they found out I could aim they put me into the thick of it."

Chloé shook her head. "The guns and the ammunition and the bombs, they ruin the… feel? The feel of the plane. Yes?"

Max nodded, smiling ruefully. She had trained on unarmed craft and reveled in their comparative lightness. She hadn't thought in a long time about how much she'd hated pulling the trigger, early on. Like everything else, she'd gotten used to it.

"Ah," Chloé said, "I would like to fly with you. A two seat plane, you know? We could teach each other, I think."

An impossible dream. "That sounds lovely."

"Perhaps when the war is over, if we are not made to kill each other."

Max frowned. "When the war is over, we'll be lucky to ever fly again."

"Ja. I do not know what will happen. There is talk of revolution. The Kaiser has ruined us. I hope he will hang."

Max's eyes widened. "I'm surprised you'd admit that. To an enemy pilot."

Chloé laughed bitterly. "Do your people think there is good, ah… morale? Morale, yes? In the German army? Perhaps they have not noticed the desertions? Our men are hungry. I still have a full ration only because I am an officer."

Max nodded, conceding the point. "We're aware, of course. I don't want to talk about the war anymore. I never really wanted to be in a war in the first place. I just wanted to fly."

"Ja." Chloé finished her cigarette, regretfully tossed the smoldering butt into the fire, sighing.

"Tell me about your home town." Max said. "The good parts."

"Hmm. I am Preußisch, ah… you would say Prussian, of course. A small town on the sea, near Dänemark. Too quiet, I thought. The good parts…. well, the sea is nice."

Max smiled. That sounded familiar. "There was a place I would go," she said, "a cliff where you could look out at the ocean. It always made me feel better, when I was sad."

"Yes, I think I had a place that was the same. Were you often sad?"

Max shrugged. "Sometimes." In truth, more often than she cared to admit. She sipped at her schnapps.

Chloé smirked. "Sometimes. You say so little, yet so much!"

Max frowned, but, glancing over at Chloé, found a sympathetic smile.

When Max didn't elaborate, Chloé spoke again. "My father died when I was fourteen. Trampled by a horse. A terrible thing. We were very close. After that I… was very angry. I am still angry."

"I'm sorry."

Chloé shook her head. "It is nothing that can be changed. Fate is cruel."

"Tell me about him."

Chloé looked over at Max warily, and there was a long pause before she began. She told her story as the fire slowly ebbed, her happy childhood, then a pervasive sense of loneliness and isolation as her mother struggled to support them. Max sensed there were details being left out, but didn't pry further. She found herself wishing she had been there. They might have been friends. She liked Chloé, and… despite her frumpy men's outfit and military haircut, she was beautiful, softly lit by the fire's golden glow.

When the last coals began to fade and the evening chill found them in the kitchen, they retired to the lone bed, with no choice but to share it again. It made Max strangely nervous, but also, she was glad. As comfortable as the house was, she was still lost in unfamiliar territory, and did not want to be alone. The farm was eerily silent at night, with none of the rustles and coughs and low conversation of her usual base. She stripped down to her knickers, gratefully crawling under the dense pile of blankets. Chloé slipped into bed next to her, and Max edged away, giving her space.

She was surprised when Chloé sidled up against her, their shoulders touching. "It is cold!" Chloé said, then, more quietly, "And I do not want to forget that you are here."

Maybe this was normal for Germans. Max tried to relax, let herself enjoy the unfamiliar closeness. The schnapps helped. Within minutes, she was sound asleep.


	4. Ally

The following day was warm, so Max joined Chloé in the woods, gathering more firewood, using lengths of rope they'd found in the barn to lash bundles to their backs. It was pleasant enough amongst the trees, but the work got harder as morning turned to noon. Max wasn't used to this sort of labour.

They shared a simple lunch of tinned meat and apples, sitting on a log, talking flying. They had each piloted a wide variety of aircraft but had not a single plane in common. In some ways it was remarkable how similar the planes on both sides of the war had become, but even the smallest differences were of interest to an ace pilot. Chloé eventually dove into the story of one of her more memorable battles, but Max shook her head. "Flying, I enjoy. Fighting…" she shrugged. "Not here."

Chloé nodded agreement, standing. "That is best. I am not tired yet. You rest, I will carry these back. Help me tie them." She gestured at the stack of branches they had collected before sitting down to eat.

Max stood and helped secure a big bundle of wood to Chloé's back, then watched as she trudged off toward the house, grateful for the break. She resumed the relatively easy work of collecting fallen branches, humming to herself. The quiet of the woods was relaxing, could not be farther removed from the ferocious noise and continuous stress of flying a fighter aircraft.

 _Bang!_ A gunshot in the distance. Then, a second later, the chatter of a hundred little echoes. Max froze in her tracks, dropped the branch she was carrying. _Chloé!_ If they found her, if they'd been waiting at the house… Max had been a fool to let her go back alone. She broke into a sprint, leaping fallen logs, shoving through underbrush. What if she was too late?

 _Bang!_ Another report, identical to the first. Max didn't slow, charging over rough ground, branches scratching across her face and hands. She vaulted over a boulder, ducked under low branches, finally emerging from the woods, with a clear view of the house. She stumbled to a halt, shading her eyes, breathing hard. No vehicle, no visible activity. No sign of any firefight. Then, movement in the orchard, near the house. A single figure, in shadow.

Max took off again, running as fast as she could. It might already be over. There were no more shots. She suddenly wondered if she were running toward her own death, but she pushed the thought down. She was an English officer in France, she had nothing to fear. Only Chloé was in danger.

She pounded across the pasture separating the house from the woods, then was in the orchard, crushing sodden, half-rotten apples with each step. She passed a tree trunk spattered with fresh blood, near the ground. The figure was ahead, now stooping, reaching for something. A person? _Oh no,_ Max thought. Feared. _No no no._

Rounding a final tree trunk… it was Chloé, straightening as Max approached, pistol in hand. And at her feet, the body of a boar, coarse black hair matted with blood from a bullet hole on its flank, and a second between its eyes. Chloé turned to Max, grinning hugely.

"Chloé!" Max gasped, fighting for breath. "I thought… I was afraid… ah…"

Chloé's smile was replaced by a frown of concern and she walked up to Max, ran her thumb along Max's cheek. It came away with a thick, red smear. Max hadn't even noticed the cut. "I'm sorry if you were frightened," Chloé said. "It came to eat apples, you see? I took the ammunition from your bag, it did not see me, I was able to get close." Then the smile returned, wryly one-sided. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at Max's cheek. "You are very worried about me. Do not fret. I am not foolish enough to fight infantry, if they come. This," she said, waving her sidearm, "is not large enough."

Max was finally catching her breath, the adrenaline fading into intense relief. "I was just afraid my holiday was over," she said. She nudged the dead boar with her foot. "What do we do with this?"

Chloé turned back toward it, casually shoving her pistol into the back of her trousers. "We must get the blood out. Help me lift. Ah, we will eat very well tonight! If only I had a grinder, I could make sausages!"

"You know how to make sausage?"

Chloé laughed. "No! Not at all!"

Butchering the boar consumed the rest of their day, but Chloé was right, they ate very, very well that night, collapsing into bed with full bellies, the farmhouse redolent with the aroma of roast pork.

The bitterness Max had seen in Chloé the night before had disappeared from view, such had she enjoyed the cooking and the eating. She was even more beautiful, Max decided, when she was happy.

* * *

Dressing the following morning, Max realized there was dried blood in her short hair. And a little pork grease. Rubbing the back of her neck, her fingers came back dirty. "I need a bath," she said, scowling.

Chloé, still in bed, looked on with bemusement. "Yes, I agree. You need a bath."

"You're comfortable as you are? Please don't tell me that German soldiers don't bathe."

"Did you not know," Chloé said cheerfully, "German women simply do not get dirty. There is no need." She held up a hand, smugly regarding her fingernails, which Max knew full well were full of gunk.

Max rolled her eyes. "Mmm-hmm. Well, I'm going to draw a bath today. You're welcome to it if you change your mind."

"That would be very nice, but, I do not think we will both fit in the tub!"

"I meant after me!"

"Ah… but I am the hauptmann here, as the ranking officer I should have the first bath."

Max raised an eyebrow. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Also, I have shot our meat and carried most of the firewood!"

That was a fair point, taking the boar had hugely improved their fortunes. Max huffed, but she didn't really mind. "Fine. First bath for Hauptmann Preiss. You'll have to help carry the water though."

"Of course! You should practice your negotiation, that was too easy."

Max grinned as she headed for the kitchen. It was a big project, but if they collected yet more wood a got the stove going early, and hauled up enough buckets of water, they could have a nice, full, warm bath. Max got to work on breakfast, frying onions and potatoes in a bit of precious lard.

* * *

The little valley was a quiet place. As they hauled the water and wood for the bath, their only accompaniment was birdsong and the occasional gust of wind through the trees. To Max's surprise, Chloé began to sing, her voice projecting softly from the open door of the house, some German folk song Max couldn't understand. She enjoyed it anyway, smiling as she filled another bucket from the ice-cold stream.

Then, as she trudged up to the house, her stomach dropped when she heard a familiar sound. She set down the bucket and dropped to the ground, scanning the horizon. Coming over the peak where she and Chloé had dueled, a single two-seat British reconnaissance plane. She should stand and wave, jump up and down, maybe light a signal fire. It was her duty to be found.

Instead, she darted inside the house, where Chloé was laying the fire in the stove. She glanced up at Max, clear trepidation written on her face.

Max shut the door behind her and sat in one of the chairs. She was not ready to go back to war. "I don't think they saw me. We should be safe." As she said it, she wondered at her own choice of words. She was perfectly safe, and yet, terrified of being discovered. She really didn't want the holiday to end.

They waited in the kitchen until the sound of the plane was gone. Max stepped outside, furtively searching the sky. When she was sure they were clear, the bath project resumed.

Heating pot after pot of water on the stove took the entire afternoon. After they'd eaten dinner, another satisfying hunk of pork with baked apples, the sun long gone and the evening chill beginning to set in, Chloé mixed a final pot-full of hot water into the old tin tub. Then she unceremoniously disrobed and slipped into it, sighing happily. Max pulled a chair up next to her, poured them each a little cup of schnapps. Chloé took hers gratefully, holding it up with her usual "Prost."

"Prost," Max replied.

"It has been too long," Chloé said. "Having someone else to make the bath was perhaps my favorite… ah… vergünstigung. Benefit?" She scowled, disliking this translation, then shrugged, water sloshing around her shoulders. "Benefit of rank."

Max nodded agreement. "We had a little bathhouse at my old base, and I could use it any time I wanted since I'm an officer, get a private tub with a curtain. But I couldn't really relax, I was always afraid someone would open the curtain and see me."

"No one did?"

"No. I kept my pistol with me though, just in case. The one you threw away."

"I am sorry about that. We had a single tub, in a tent. I did not worry, you do not interrupt the blue baron in his bath, even if he takes a very long time." Chloé knocked back her remaining schnapps, set the cup down beside the tub, and began to scrub. "Still, I like this better. It is good to have company," she said.

Soon enough it was Max's turn. Chloé reluctantly climbed out, dried herself, then clambered into her warm, bulky flight suit, and sat in the chair, while Max slipped into the water. Only once she had done so did she feel Chloé's eyes, remember her earlier discomfiture at being seen naked. She found that she no longer cared.

Maybe it was more than that. Maybe she liked to be seen as she really was. She'd never wanted to be a man, it was just a necessity to join the army, certainly to fly a plane. They'd never let a woman into the cockpit of a military aircraft.

As Max washed, Chloé smoked the one after-dinner cigarette she allowed herself each day. For a time, she was silent, looking contended but a bit quizzical. Max enjoyed the warmth of the bath, leaning back in the tub and breathing deeply.

Eventually Chloé spoke, exhaling smoke. "Have you ever been in love, Maxine?"

A difficult question. Of course she had been in love. Max winced at the memory, her childhood friend pulling away from her, giggling, girlish laughter. "Max, you are so _silly!_ "

She had also been proposed to on three separate occasions, each time being informed that she would be well taken care of, and would make the asker a _very_ happy man. Instead she had invented Maxwell and joined the army. It had seemed sensible, at the time. She summarized all of this for Chloé by emitting a barely audible grunt of displeasure.

"No?" Chloé prodded. "You have been surrounded by Britain's finest young men! Pilots! Officers! Even lords!"

Max shook her head. It wasn't a story she wanted to tell.

"Hmm," Chloé said, pulling her chair up behind Max. She began to massage Max's shoulders, and Max let out an involuntary sigh, relaxing further, surprised but grateful. Hauling all that water for the bath had taken its toll, and her muscles were sore.

After a few minutes, Chloé leaned down, spoke close to her ear, taunting her. "Perhaps a German. Conrad von Preiss is, I believe, quite a handsome young man?"

Max scowled with sudden unhappiness. Enough. "No!" she said, twisting to face Chloé. "I don't…" She trailed off. The mockery in Chloé's voice wasn't matched by her expression, which was tender, hopeful. She was so close. Max felt her stomach knot. She leaned forward, and Chloé did not move. Max kissed her, slow and gentle.

Chloé did not pull away, laugh at her, call her silly. Not at all. She tasted of tobacco smoke.

Max turned away, leaned back in the bath again, stunned at her own brashness and the unexpected result, her heart beating fast.

Chloé moved back behind her, began to massage her shoulders again, this time more gently. "I did not think…" she began, but didn't finish the thought. Max placed a hand over Chloé's own.

"Yes," Max said, her fingers tracing Chloé's. "I have been in love."

Chloé soon leaned back in her chair, pulling her suit tight around her. The wind had been rising, and now it whistled through the house, pulling away the warmth of their dying fire. "It is getting cold. Get out of there and come to bed."

Max climbed out of the tub and was instantly cold, drying herself with their lone, damp towel as quickly as she could. Chloé dropped her suit in a heap at her feet, and they crossed into the bedroom and lay down, pulling the blankets up high, listening to the rushing wind outside.

As they warmed up, they drew close together, each uncertain, exchanging furtive smiles in the dim light. Finally Chloé kissed Max, timidly at first. "It is alright?" she asked, sounding, for the first time, nervous, her hands warm on Max's skin.

Max was nervous too. "Yes," she said.


	5. Immigrant

Max awoke slowly to morning light. She felt groggy; they hadn't gone to sleep until very late. She found herself in a tangle of blankets at the edge of the bed, away from Chloé. She rolled over, gently slid her hand around the other woman's bare waist, rested her head against her shoulder. It was a familiar and very pleasant sensation, and, as she returned to consciousness, entirely right. She rested there, silent, not wanting to wake Chloé.

But Chloé was already awake. "Oh," she said. "Good morning, Maxine."

Max smiled, nuzzling closer. "I was hoping not to wake you."

Chloé shrugged lightly. " _I_ did not want to wake _you._ We still have no mission to fly, Oberleutnant Caulfield." One hand stroked Max's hair, still army-short but at least no longer full of blood and grease. "How do you look when this is long, I wonder?"

"I'm a shining vision of feminine perfection."

Chloé chuckled. "I have no doubt _._ I would like to keep mine short, it is so much easier to manage. The brushing was so tedious." Then she sighed. "But I cannot live as a man forever. I will be expected to have long hair."

"Not necessarily. When I left England some of the more fashionable women were wearing their hair short. I've heard it's become very popular in America, they call it a _bob._ "

"Bob? Is that not a man's name?"

"Because it's a man's haircut."

"A silly name. Fine. I will have a _bob._ "

"Me too."

For a moment Chloé didn't say anything, absently stroking Max's hair. Then, quietly, she said, "Tell me about her."

"What?"

"Last night, you said you had been in love. Tell me about her. Or him?"

Max groaned, rolling onto her back. "Her. Just an old friend, I was young, I didn't understand… anything. She was beautiful and intelligent and graceful and… how could you not love her? The boys did, too." She sighed. "It was a long time ago. I imagine we're still friends, or we're supposed to be, if I ever come home from the war. She's probably married by now, with a child or two."

"Ah, she did not—"

"No."

"It was different for me. There was a girl… we loved each other. When we could, but it is not permitted, you know? It was very hard. And then we were discovered… her father beat her, and sent her away. Boarding school."

"I'm sorry."

Chloé shook her head. "The man is a fool. A school full of girls who 'misbehave'. We were not allowed to correspond, but I think she would have done well there." She rolled to lean over Max, looking down at her, grinning. "That is history. I am not sad about it now." She leaned down and kissed Max, casually. "And here there is no one to see. I hope our holiday will continue."

Max grinned back at her. "The weather's getting worse, I doubt they're still looking for us. I think we're stuck here for the winter."

Chloé flopped back down onto the bed. "I do wish there were books."

"Or a newspaper."

"Or some coffee."

"Or a man to draw the bath."

"Or a working aeroplane."

"Or a sack of coal. We're going to need a lot more firewood to get through winter."

Chloé sighed. "Yes, always we must have more fuel. Just as it is with flying." With that, she leapt from the bed and began to dress. "To action, oberleutnant. We can resume this," she gestured at the bed, "when the sun has fallen."

Max smiled as she rose. Another day of hard work, another night with Chloé. A rhythm she could get used to.

The days that followed were a happy time. Max was glad for the isolation, the lack of responsibility, the absence of distraction. In the wide world, they would have had to be careful, hide what was really going on. At the farm, Chloé could ambush Max in the field, tickling her before pushing her up against the side of the barn, kissing her happily. After a lifetime of pretending, of holding back, of certain rejection, it was a revelation.

But besides each other and the basics of survival, there was little to occupy their time. Autumn was deepening into winter, and many days were simply too cold for Max to work outside. She was increasingly confined to the tiny house while Chloé, warm in her flight suit, ranged far into the forest for wood or gleaned a few last potatoes from the edges of the fields. The hours passed slowly, nothing to read, nothing to say, nothing to make. In a normal farmhouse this would be the time to mend clothes, repair tools, tend to animals, prepare for the spring planting. Max had nothing.

She was a fighter pilot. She wanted to fly, to feel the wind on her face, to see the mountains and valleys again arrayed below her, sliding effortlessly past. She wasn't sure she ever would again.

* * *

A cold, windy afternoon found Max, as usual, in the kitchen, the stove already roaring. Chloé came through the door, a freshly skinned and cleaned rabbit dangling from one hand. She closed the door and stopped, staring wide-eyed at the oblong loaf of bread on the table, slightly misshapen, but graced with a bubbly brown crust. "It has worked?" she asked, needlessly. "It has worked!" She strode over, dropped the rabbit on the table, and reached for the loaf, but Max intercepted her, a hand on her chest.

"I just took it out, it needs to sit a while or it'll be gummy on the inside."

Chloé balked, looking from Max to the bread and back again. The starter dough had been a project weeks in the making, flour and water left to sit, carefully skimmed of mold and replenished, slowly beginning to bubble, a little more vigorously each day. Even Max's patience had worn thin. Now the house smelled powerfully of fresh-baked sourdough, and they couldn't eat it. Yet. "Maxine, I have not eaten bread in a month. You do not understand. It is life for a German."

Max understood perfectly well. Years in France had converted her to the local bread; she'd have a hard time returning to the bland English stuff. "Just wait a little bit. It's too hot anyway," she said, then gestured at the rabbit. "Nice big one today,"

"Oh. Yes! It will be hard to eat all of this but I think we will manage it if we are disciplined."

Max chuckled, sure that Chloé's prodigious appetite was up to the task. She took the rabbit to the stove, started patting it with salt.

Behind her, Chloé sat down and stretched. "I am very happy about this bread. But, Maxine, I am worried, also."

Max paused her seasoning. "About what?" She thought she knew. What else was there to worry about?

"Will you find me, if they separate us? Will you stay with me, after the war is finished?"

"Of course."

"But how, Maxine? Where will we go?"

"You don't want to go back to Germany?"

Chloé scoffed. "Even if things are… normal, which, I think they will not be normal, they will want me to marry, be some… hausfrau. I may be the blue baron, but what good is it to be the hero of a lost war? You know the kaiserreich is doomed."

"Come to London with me. I can find work there."

Chloé shook her head. "As a German, they will spit on me in the street. As the baron, if they discover me, I will hang!"

Max doubted either of those things were true. But it was hard to be sure, she hadn't been home in a long time, and much had changed since '14. "I don't know about that." She turned toward Chloé. "We'll figure it out, together. We won't let anybody pull us apart." It felt good to say it.

Chloé smiled up at her.

* * *

It began to snow, but even in the mountains it was only a light fall, persisting for a few days before being melted by cold rain. The solstice was approaching, and with it, a rather dreary Christmas. Max would have given a lot for a goose.

The sound of the engine, when it came, was audible long before the vehicle appeared. Not the powerful roar of a big aircraft engine, but the stuttering, anemic popping of an automobile. Max and Chloé watched from the bedroom's lone window as the ungainly contraption lumbered up the track toward the house, a small van with the markings of the Armée Française.

It stopped in front of the house, and a young man in the distinctive blue winter uniform stepped out, his heavy coat adorned with an officer's insignia. A lieutenant, Max was fairly certain. Strange that he had come alone, but then, it was strange that he had come at all. He stood staring at the old house, taking in the evidence of their recent occupation, before approaching and knocking on the door. It had no lock, and Max assumed that if they failed to answer, he would search the place. "Damn," she whispered. "Do you speak French?"

Chloé waved a hand, "Some, but I cannot meet him, he will hear my German voice and arrest me."

"Right. I'll see what he wants." Max was still dressed as a farmer's wife but her French was halting and, she was sure, heavily accented. She headed for the door, hearing, behind her, the sound of Chloé sliding the magazine into her pistol, chambering a round. She tried not to think about what exactly Chloé intended. Instead, she put a smile on her face and opened the door. "Bonjour!" she said, trying to sound cheerful.

The man's eyebrows rose briefly in surprise, but he quickly recovered and doffed his cap. "Good afternoon," he answered in crisp English, only slightly accented. "Strange to find an Englishwoman in such a remote place."

Max was not about to volunteer information. "Yes, I'm sure," she said. "What can I do for you?"

The officer smiled, fingering his hat. "My unit is tasked with locating missing soldiers. A British and German pilot were lost near here and have not been heard from since, so I am visiting the farmsteads in the area. Most are still empty; this was an evacuation zone, you know?" Max shrugged, and the man continued. "Have you seen any aircraft, or anyone on foot in the past months…?"

"No."

"A shame. The difficulty is, I was told that the British pilot in question may not in fact be a man. I was given a detailed description."

Max scowled at the officer. "And what exactly will you do when you find these missing pilots?"

"Ah, well, they are presumed dead. My orders are to locate their bodies and the remains of their craft. If they were to be found alive, I would take them back to my base so that they could be debriefed and returned home."

Max blinked. "Home? Not… back to the front?" Or an army prison, in Chloé's case.

"Ah!" the man's face lit in a broad smile. "Perhaps you have not had news? Germany has signed an armistice. The Kaiser is in exile. The war is over."

Max stood motionless for a moment. Then, without moving, called out. "Chloé!"

She had not thought it would be so difficult to say goodbye to the little farm, small and cold and dull as it was. But when it was time to go, she lingered in the doorway, giving quiet thanks.

* * *

The ship steamed across the harbor in bright sun, deep blue sea under clear sky. Two women, blonde and brunette, leaned against the railing, shoulder to shoulder, gazing out at the horizon. Like the rest of the passengers, they'd donned their best clothes, pretty dresses and fine hats. It was an important day.

Suddenly the taller of the two pointed. "Max, I can see her! Look!"

Max followed the gesture, seeing the shape of the great statue resolve in the distance, torch held aloft. A grand sight after weeks at sea. Soon the other passengers saw it too, and a commotion swept through the assembled crowd. The ship's horn blew in celebration.

Before long they had disembarked at a little island, and stood queued in a cavernous hall. Max waited behind Chloé, watching as she was interviewed by the immigration clerk.

"Name?"

"Chloé Elisabeth Preiss, ah, here is how to spell it in English…" she produced a card on which Max had written "Chloe Elizabeth Price".

The clerk took it without comment, copied down the name, and proceeded with his questions. "Age?"

"Twenty-four."

"Married or single."

"Ah," Chloé hesitated, "single."

"Occupation?"

"Aeroplane pilot."

The man glanced up from his ledger, giving her an incredulous look.

She raised an eyebrow, matching his stare. "You want to know about it?" She began making hand gestures showing the movements of a plane. "Takeoff distance, rate of climb, pitch, roll, yaw? Airspeed during dive? No? My last plane was a Fokker D-7, BMW 3-A motor, 185 horsepower. Such a shame to lose it."

"And… how did you lose it?"

"Smashed it into a French hillside! She shot me down," Chloé said, gesturing at Max with her thumb. "I'm alright though." She did a little curtsy, continuing to meet the man's gaze.

He looked back at his ledger. "Fine. Airplane pilot it is."

After a further battery of questions, the man stamped Chloé's card, and she stepped past him, turning to wait for Max, smiling brightly. Max stepped forward, and the clerk looked at her skeptically. "You shot her down?"

Max shrugged. "It's possible. It was a big war."

"So you're also a pilot."

Max hefted her new Leica 35mm camera. "Let's say I'm a photographer."


End file.
